


Cold

by bexacaust



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, war changes people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 12:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16681258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexacaust/pseuds/bexacaust
Summary: You see the sad in everything aGenius of love and loneliness andThis time you overdid the liquorThis time you pulled the fuckin’ trigger





	Cold

This wasn’t the Perceptor Brainstorm remembered. This wasn’t the sarcastic supervisor who scolded tongue in cheek. 

But this is who came back from a hell filed under Top Secret. This is who was left after putting the pieces back together too many times.

A mech with optics cold not because of cruelty, but from so long without warmth around them. A scowl not made of anger, but broken faceplates set back with shaking hands. Too straight backstruts that creaked and hissed if he sat at a desk too long. Knee-joints that ground together softly, as though their very components tired of the this world and all the let-downs in it.

This new Perceptor worked alone, slept alone, drank alone. Feared alone.

An existence like a dying star, a starving black hole sun in a dead galaxy.

This new Perceptor had a roster of medications he tired of taking; tired of feeling ill and yet preferring nausea to overwhelming panic. Preferred blank stares over technicolor nightmares he’d never escape.

This was not the Perceptor that Brainstorm remembered- but this is the Perceptor he still loved. 

Where war had made Brainstorm lenient, it had made Perceptor bullheaded- It had made him confrontational and Brainstorm watched with something heavy behind his chestplate as this new Perceptor swore under his breath and flexed servos that hadn’t been retuned since his return to Kimia.

Where war had made Brainstorm avoidant, it had made Perceptor dependent. Where Brainstorm refused to glance at weapons storage, Perceptor took comfort in hours spent within it. Where Brainstorm shied away from those warlike in behavior, Perceptor now thrived in such company.

Brainstorm watched; he watched saw the way nerves would push Perceptor’s hand to hover around a thigh compartment- a secret holster hidden behind jittery plating. 

This mech who wore scuffed red and faded teal; who’s white plating was no longer smooth from a pre-lecture polish but roughened with battlefield grit-

This mech was not the Perceptor Brainstorm remembered.

This mech was the remnants that were returned; the results of an isolation experiment Brainstorm knew he would never learn the depth and breadth of. But all the same he’d stay beside him and try; he would try and find the Percy he knew under the layers of guilt and suffering and try to bring him back into the light he’d missed for so long.

Maybe the lab’s flourescent glow would melt the ice in Percy’s gaze.


End file.
